israndy
Supercharger Hunter
I missed the highest drivable mountain when I was there last year. If you have the time it's an extreme to enjoy in your travels.
-Randy
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6th Annual Sound of Silence Rally - Custer SD - May 17-19
- Thread starter Half Dollar Bill
- Start date
-Randy
Gonna be quite a bit of snow in the area, so the high parts of the mountains are probably not going to happen on this trip. We’ll see what things look like tomorrow.
Thanks to the generous hospitality of Destiny & Craig, they insisted that I stop by their place in Dickinson, ND on my adventure to tackle that state before superchargers are installed. I bumped into them at Spearfish otherwise I might have spent the night in the car at an RV Park a little west of Dickinson.
I didn't choose the most direct route to Dickinson because I wanted to enter the state at I-84 on the MT/ND border. I had to manage my energy use and speed but it worked perfectly. I even arrived with 6 miles to spare so I drove 3 miles beyond them then turned around and the range hit 0 miles just a few houses away from them. Perfection.
I ended up driving 283 miles on 255 miles of range! Not going above 55 mph was the plan and it worked out nicely. Dropping 1,050 ft in elevation helped as well.
I'm not celebrating yet as I have another 400 miles or so of this state before I can say I conquered it.
I didn't choose the most direct route to Dickinson because I wanted to enter the state at I-84 on the MT/ND border. I had to manage my energy use and speed but it worked perfectly. I even arrived with 6 miles to spare so I drove 3 miles beyond them then turned around and the range hit 0 miles just a few houses away from them. Perfection.
I ended up driving 283 miles on 255 miles of range! Not going above 55 mph was the plan and it worked out nicely. Dropping 1,050 ft in elevation helped as well.
I'm not celebrating yet as I have another 400 miles or so of this state before I can say I conquered it.
Vega Bluestar
Member
Bighorn
Top Supercharger
Right? Crazy. I half-thought about going back to get snowed in at the Bavarian Inn.
I'm not sure you can say you've conquered North Dakota even if you live there for 20 years!
TreborThickweb
Member
Charging at Jackson WY after spending the night in Pinedale WY. Was hoping for a wonderful clear view of the Wind River Range in the morning but am glad to see the area still trying to shake off the winter.
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We just spent the day in and around the Rocky Mountain National Park, Boulder and Fort Collins. Lots of rain and snow. We are heading home via I-70 tomorrow and will be sharing on Glympse if anyone is interested in following.
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swaltner
Active Member
I did a 175 mile loop through Newcastle WY to Spearfish, WY and back through Deadwood on Saturday to add Spearfish to my personal list of Visited Superchargers. As I was descending through Spearfish Canyon (a wonderful drive BTW), it was snowing pretty hard and I wondered if I would get snowed in 75 miles away from my clothes in the hotel room in Custer. 
Just about cut the loop short to head back to Custer, but decided to press on to Spearfish.
Just about cut the loop short to head back to Custer, but decided to press on to Spearfish.
SammichLover
Banned
"'What is showboating?', Alex."
LOL
Yes, I was fortunate to meet those two on Saturday at the Gold Pan. I'm hoping now my trip out beyond the edge next month will be a little easier. I just have to make sure I pack my tribute to offer up to the HPWC Dionysus and it should all be good to make it across the 49th, at least. Then I'm in Sun Country Highway territory.
How often can you say you've driven across a State that has zero superchargers? Very rarely so I had to seize the moment. North Dakota and Hawaii for us and Alaska although that will probably never have them so it might not really count.
There are quite a few Canadian Provinces but maybe by the end of this year a few of those will be populated now. They have Yukon, Northwest Territory, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland / Labrador, PEI (although 150-miles wide it could easily be a 10-mile long trip across the narrow section too), and Nova Scotia.
SammichLover
Banned
Ask me in 6 weeks.
I'm aiming to go through ND and well into SK, eventually turn a left, over and back South a bit to Calgary, then return and go up SK until I'm running short on roads. Not sure on time yet, as to how far I'll go (potentially as far as just short of the 55N), or if I'll instead swing East through Lake of The Woods area before jumping back into SC network via Duluth or something. A lot depends on schedule and availability of extended family that I'd visit on the way.
Indeed it could be the last summer of "pioneering" in a lot of places.
Ask me in 6 weeks.
I'm aiming to go through ND and well into SK, eventually turn a left, over and back South a bit to Calgary, then return and go up SK until I'm running short on roads. Not sure on time yet, as to how far I'll go (potentially as far as just short of the 55N), or if I'll instead swing East through Lake of The Woods area before jumping back into SC network via Duluth or something. A lot depends on schedule and availability of extended family that I'd visit on the way.
Indeed it could be the last summer of "pioneering" in a lot of places.
Now THAT is awesome to hear, @SammichLover, and I'm jealous as I keep wanting to get up to the areas above ND and MN. Definitely let me know a few days before your trip and I'll get you hooked up with THE best Owner support charging system I've ever encountered (aka the Owners in ND). I'll also share the places I charged and suggestions for you.
I went from MT/ND to ND/MN as it was down in elevation and theoretically with a tailwind. If you area heading West then it will just take some patience but it is enjoyable and relaxing and I'm looking forward to my next visit up that way. Each of the major towns for charging (Fargo, Jamestown, Bismarck, and Dickinson) are about 100 miles apart (as well as from Alexandria, MN to Fargo, ND).
I'll post a reply to JSergeant's question and it will be the info that you will want to use for the base route plan.
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The showboating was looping so you would have 0 miles remaining, not driving across ND. I laughed both at your original post, as well as at SammichLover's post, and am glad your looping did not get you stranded.
Gotcha. That wasn't showboating ... it was research. My 90D used to have 296 or 297 miles of max range and ~81.0 kWh of usable battery. It now has 255 miles and 69.0 to 69.5 kWh of usable battery. I'm trying to see if / when / how Tesla will replace my battery but they are being a bit resistant at this point claiming it is "still within the expected range."
On a previous drive on this trip I was able to extract 69.5 kWh so I know 69.0 kWh is a safe max to use for my calculations. Here was the max charge at Spearfish, SD and then the end result of driving 283.1 miles at 244 Wh/mi and using 69.1 kWh. I knew that I needed to go ~272 miles so I knew weeks ahead of time that I needed to average ~254 Wh/mi if I had any hope of making it which meant pretty much a max of 55 mph for the entire stretch.
I maintained that discipline and it ended up at 46.5 mph average speed (towns, traffic, slower speeds on side roads, etc.) but I knew what I was doing so in my mind it wasn't showboating but confirming what the max battery available is for me -- so that I can report that back to Tesla and show them my range is definitely not increasing. This is why I have to choose a 75D in the various Trip planning apps / sites so it doesn't think I can drive 290 miles at highway speeds (and 90% user available of 75 kWh is 67.5 kWh and I have 69.0 kWh so it is a little built-in safety range).
My friends took the direct 215-mile 3.5 hr route from Spearfish to Dickinson and if I did that I'd have to charge up for the night and backtrack 60 miles or 1 hr to get to the MT/ND border and then 60 miles or 1 hr back to Dickinson then charge for 2 hrs to add 60 miles so I could make it to Bismarck 175 miles away. That looks like 7.5 hrs of driving + charging before being able to leave Dickinson at 12 pm the next day (11 am at the earliest) and by going slower I was able to do the drive a different route in 6.0 hrs and left Dickinson at 8 am the next day.
On the route map, there was a large loss of Internet connection from ~90% SOC to ~60% SOC so that is the straight line from the corner of WY to Ekalaka, MT. There were RV Parks in Bowman, ND and Medora, ND so each of those were available but I didn't need to use them so although it might look rather remote and unsupported it was actually a walk in the park and an enjoyable adventure but I am certain nobody in a 75D would most likely never attempt that let alone someone in a 90D or 100D or LR Model 3. I really do miss the 30-40 miles of range I used to have.
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Awesome! Do you want to share my "nearly ran out and had to go 55 mph" route with her as encouragement? Rumor is Miles City, MT will be a future supercharger but that is definitely slim picking for anything other than 120v (and the RV Park in Bowman, ND) in this area.
One of the friends I stayed with in Dickinson (a Model 3 owner) does some digging at a Dinosaur site in Montana so maybe they can get some folks to head through Ekalaka or meet there and try to help out your friend and the town? My friend said they know your friend at the Museum -- neat.
I didn't venture into downtown and Google Street View hasn't visited there since 2008 / 2009 but I snagged this photo entering town. I was just happy that I finally had Internet service for a few minutes after at least an hour of nothing before heading out of town and losing it again.
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SammichLover
Banned
That's only 15% down, I'm not surprised that they're dragging their feet still on a replacement. Wish you luck on wearing them down. How much time do you have left on your warranty? Still about 4 - 5 years, right (IIRC 90D but not a facelift)?
If you manage to convince them that'll take some weight off my mind. I know it's a different gen of tech, but your total miles are just past where my warranty runs out. If I still have better than 85% original capacity when I hit that mark I'll be happy, I expect SC distribution to be even denser by then. If it drops to that point or lower and I'd be able to get warranty that'd be awesome. Win-win.
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